


Tell Me Who I Am

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (ambiguously), Character Study, D'Qar, Dreams, Finn-centric, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 20:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: He visualizes the dramatic moment when he slowly floats off the ground, nearby rocks and specks of dust orbiting him like he’s their planet. He wants to be special as much as he’s scared of it and he wants his dreams to be the truth.This was my piece for the Shore Leave zine, whichyou can download here!





	Tell Me Who I Am

Finn dreams of a festival where people in red sashes dance barefoot and languages he can’t identify flow together like music. He wanders through narrow cobbled streets, following the spicy smell of fire-roasted meat and the sound of many drums and tambourines, until he finds a plaza full of sunlight and laughter. Banners are strewn over the cooper roofs, tarnished green by time, and confetti is in the air. Bells toll and birds begin to sing.

Here it is loud and bright and beautiful, but when the people try to speak to him, none of their words make sense. They seem to recognize him, and he wants so badly to belong, but he cannot understand them. The half-remembered festival is gone, except for the lingering sense of unease, as soon as he wakes up.

This isn’t uncommon for him. He dreams all the time but sleeps very little. Sometimes he can't even breathe in the base, surrounded by permacrete. While everyone else is in their beds, Finn likes to explore and meditate in the D’Qar ruins. He always finds his way back to the camouflaged Resistance hangars, no matter how deep into the woods he goes.

Knowing he won’t be able to sleep again this night, he washes his face and changes into his Jedi clothes; they technically are since they used to belong to Rey. The thin white cotton shirt and beige canvas-material pants still smell faintly of her. More than Poe’s jacket, he’s taken to borrowing from his friends, longing for the identity they have been allowed all their lives.

Finn wonders if Rey is awake right now on Ahch-to as he creeps through the quiet hallways until he's finally outside. The air is cold and damp as the last threads of night are unweaved in a silky whisper, and above the trees are the blue-misted peaks of the distant mountains. In their shadows lie the ruins of an ancient civilization. Nothing lives here now. He hasn’t found a single animal in these woods, not even their bones.

Stone columns carved with symbols rise like fists to seize the moon, and temples made of sun-baked bricks curve into the side of the mountains. The ceilings are high yet the corridors are tight, and they lead deep underground. The stairways never seem to end. They appear primitive from the outside, but there are traces of machinery - wires under the surface, pipes behind the walls, wheels on the rusted axles.

What did they look like, the people who built these structures? Where were their homes? Who loved D’Qar enough to name it? Who remembers what that name means? He dreams of them as shawled people running between the trees, never close enough for him to distinguish their faces, if they even have any features left.

Finn knows how to navigate small spaces, although he has to go slow because of his back injury. His footsteps reverberate in the temple he’s drawn to, and he quickly finds his favorite nook. It’s a good place to hide if the base was attacked, and he could lead a lot of the Resistance down here. No one else seems to care about these ruins other than him, though. That’s fine with him, because now he can meditate in peace.

Meditating doesn’t help him sleep, but it does calm his anxiety. When Rey comes back, they’ll do this together. He smells the collar of his shirt, imagining her besides him. He closes his eyes and he slows his breathing. He manages to quiet his mind for a while, but part of him searches for echoes of power within, kept hidden like the ships half-sunk in Jakku salt flats.

He visualizes the dramatic moment when he slowly floats off the ground, nearby rocks and specks of dust orbiting him like he’s their planet. He wants to be special as much as he’s scared of it and he wants his dreams to be the truth.

It’s the same desperate hope he feels inside these ruins. He slowly opens his eyes. The dim light of the moon casts shadows across his face and the floor, and he wonders if there’s anyone alive who could read the half-eroded words engraved in the stone. In this hour, he feels like the ruins are speaking to him.

He responds, in a timid voice, “Tell me who I am.”

Nothing happens, of course. He feels pathetic, but Rey would sympathize with his strange dreams and stranger urges. Only one other person has.

They used to sit in an alcove together, cross-legged like children. Slip discovered it when he was assigned janitor duty in the lower levels of the Finalizer. He had kind eyes, and Finn stole kisses when he could - not too many, not enough to hope for more. It was a young love that deserved more time than it got. There was always, on the horizon, the concept of after, but he didn't think about dying. In those cold durasteel corridors, he didn't think about living, either.

This is freedom - the chance at happiness, the time to heal - but Slip will always remain a crossed out serial number in a forgotten databank. The memory of an older stormtrooper comes to him, from his first mission on a mining colony. _“You're an outsider. And you'll always be looking in and wondering why you don't belong.”_

Dawn breaks. Finn leaves the temple with stiff legs and a sore neck. The wind is a song in the trees and the clouds are islands in the bluish-gray sky, lapping at the white sand of drifting peninsulas. Thunder rumbles in the southwest, and the smell of rain is everywhere. He doesn't stop until he reaches the base, and then he halts at the sight that greets him.

“Poe!”

“Hey, buddy.” His smile is as warm as the thermos in his hand. “I thought I'd find you out here.”

They walk together into the base. Behind them, the sun spreads across the horizon like a wildfire, burning away the night and leaving the morning naked and bare. The landscape is reshaped into something soft and tender, and even the stone columns unclench their fists.

“Hey, Finn,” Poe says gently. “You need to talk?”

Finn considers it, but then says, “Not really.”

“That’s alright, buddy. Take your time.” They reach the cafeteria, where the tech crew and a few of the medical staff are beginning their busy schedules. Poe offers his thermos. “I got coffee already so we don’t have to stand in line.”

“Why are you up so early?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Finn tries to believe him. He’s a friend, beloved and remembered. He can smile without being punished, laugh without being silenced. But there's so many who can’t. Someday he’ll have the words to tell Poe what that feels like, but for now, he takes the thermos, pours himself coffee, and puts on a smile when he says, “Up for a game of pazaak later?”


End file.
